


The Hidden Heart

by NightSong02



Category: Blazing Saddles, Magnificent Seven
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightSong02/pseuds/NightSong02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryn has lost everything at a tender age. Deciding to take charge, Ryn heads West in hope of a better future. For a lone boy this would be hard. So how much more trouble would it be for a girl. Especially one with little to no understanding of what it means to be as such. Maybe Vin can help?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How it begins

I do not own either the characters or the places in either film. Just my OC who is a semi insert, so please do not sue. I have little money and am still paying off the doctor and my visa...

 

Chapter One: How it begins 

 

I never had a conventional upbringing. My parents had gotten carried away in their sporting and were forced into matrimony when mothers' belly swelled. They treated each other with antipathy, but perhaps if I had been born a boy, things wouldn't have devolved into hostility between the two. By the time I was able to reason and tell the difference in emotions (I was five or six), things had gone from bad to worse. They hated each other with the passion of a thousand fiery suns and they felt nothing for me, but apathy. Or perhaps mother felt naught for me, but father would talk and interact with me. He insisted I learnt how to read and write. I wasn't going to be illiterate and stuck like he was, he often declared proudly whenever I came home with glowing reports from the schoolmaster.  
Father was a worker on the docks of Boston while mother did needlework for some of the fine ladies in town. One of her laments was that she could have been one of those fine ladies, if only she hadn't let fathers' looks and promises turn her head. Father responded that if he'd known what a frigid bitch she was, he wouldn't have bothered trying to impress her. Every weekend, and a few evenings he'd take me out and teach me how to fight, and fight dirty at that, and how to handle knives. My greatest possession is this old Bowie knife he gave me for my ninth birthday. He said  
"Yeh may be a girl, but nae daughter o' mine is gonna be hurt without puttin' up a fight! Yeh come from a line o' fighters an' effen ya wanna give yeh self to summone tha's one thin'. But dun let no one tek wut yeh nae wanna give wit'out mekin' dem pay for it. One way or the other!"  
I never forgot his words.   
Mother never really cared what we did or how I dressed, treating me as if I didn't exist. Without her influence, I wore boys clothes for most all my life. The few times she deigned to acknowledge me, was usually when she wanted to berate and sneer at me for not being a little lady. I have no idea how she thought I could become one when she was never there for me to learn from. I had my fathers features, strong and defined, but her eyes, a shade of blue like the sea, and her black hair that I kept boy short. I doubt anyone knew I was a girl, my name sounded masculine but spelt in a feminine way. Money was always tight, and some nights I went hungry, but we had a roof over our heads and some clothes to cover our bodies, so things weren't as bad as some.  
A month after my tenth birthday, there was a nasty accident at the docks and five men lost their lives. One of them was my father, who made the most money. His boss told us that we'd have to leave the hovel, as it was only for dock workers and their families. It was the last straw for mother and she went shrieking into insanity and I was left watching as she was taken to the sanitarium. I knew, if I stayed, then I'd be taken to the orphanage and I had no intention of joining that place with the hollow eyed kids and fat staff. I collected all the money in the house, the loose everyday stuff and the savings under the floorboard in the kitchen. All told it was nearly $250. Packed a small bag of clothes, tucked my knife in the small of my back, and legged it out of there, to the train station. I was going to take my fate in my own hands, I was going to live as I wanted.  
I was going West.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't as bad as I thought. Or perhaps I had a plethora of luck. I caught the train to Dawson City, and got hired on as a trail cook for a railway camp. I think it was both my age and determination to take care of myself without help that got the head cooks' approval and sympathy. I worked hard and without complaint, starting from the bottom, running errands, fetching this that and the other, rose to be able to make purchases of any fresh food that could be had in the trade markets, and finally learning how to cook.  
I met so many different people that if I had stayed back in Boston, I normally wouldn't have had even a glimmer of a chance to; Chinese, black, working girls and even Indians. When I wasn't in the mess tents, chopping and frying, I was with one person or another, learning whatever they cared to teach me. The Indians who wandered in and out, sold hides and wild meat. I went with them a few times to learn how they hunted. It was an experience and a half, learning to ride bareback or with a blanket and how to use a bow and arrow. They spoke of the Great Spirit and how everything was connected. I learnt how to speak a few phrases in their tongue and how to show my respect when meeting strange tribes.  
The Chinese taught what herbs and teas would be beneficial in healing the body, spicing the food differently to make something old taste new and different. And, privately, what would kill a person quiet like. They also showed some hand to hand fighting, and taught me some simple escapes, holds and breaks, as well as certain points on a body that if hit, would incapacitate my enemy from the pain. It was harder to learn from the black folk. They were wary of a white 'boy' wanting to hang around them, thinking I was listening for any grumbling to take back to the bosses. Eventually I learned some of their stories and songs, and made a friend or two. With the working girls, I divulged my gender and they found it hilarious to keep quiet; but from them I learned about the monthly curse all women go through, what to do about it, how to bind my chest to hide my burgeoning body, and what herbs I'd need to take to keep from getting pregnant (if I ever gave myself to someone), and how to use makeup to make myself older or just accentuate what I had. I often got ribbed from the other cooks who thought I was precocious for spending so much time amongst the ladies - though one or two asked if I was a catamite and how much I charged. They got put down right fast by the others and I carefully kept my distance from them.  
I stayed there a full four years, learning and working and sometimes fighting in brawls that'd break out, sometimes in front of my sleeping place. Eventually, feeling an itch in my feet, I asked one of the Indian braves I had made friends with, and whom I had divulged my gender too, to help me find a good horse from a trader who'd come into camp. A one year old mare, about fifteen hands with a soft dove grey coat and black mane and tail, with a sweet disposition. I named her Kai, and somehow, I knew that my time there, was soon to end. The end actually came about when a few cowboys, drunk as a skunk, got offended because I declined to join their game of poker, even though I explained that I didn't know how to play. They believed that I thought myself too good to play with them. They started a brawl and I put them down, hard. Unfortunately my true sex was revealed when one got a good hold of my shirt and ripped it.   
When everyone got all upset about me not revealing my gender, accusing me of being a delinquent and a bad girl, I asked them straight up  
"Would you have hired me? No. Have I ever given you any reason to complain about my work? No. So it's a moot point, no? But I can see when I'm not wanted, so I'm going."  
They tried to fuss about finding my family and sending me back to them. I sighed and shook my head at them.  
"Do you think that if I had family I'd have been here in the first place? Do try to think logically." and while they were chewing on that, I packed my bags, got my pay, clothes and weapons,saddled Kai and rode away.


	2. Meetings and Leavings

I headed further west, thinking to find somewhere to settle down. I met up with a few Comanche, but my respectful actions when I saw them, and my speaking in their language (though they laughed at some of the words I used, my accent turning them out wrongly) allowed me safe passage.  
I went to Rock Ridge, where to my surprise, the sheriff was a black man, with a white deputy. He knew I was a girl and was tickled pink that I refused to be put in a box and be labeled. One of his cousins, a friend of mine, had been a worker at the railway camp I had left and had sent a telegram detailing what he knew about me and asked him to keep an eye out for me. He pretty much adopted me as a niece, and regaled me with stories about the troubles the town had had with Hedley Lamarr, and how in using his mind, worked out a plan to outwit, and frustrate the greedy man.  
Turns out Bart had been in the Union Army during the late unpleasantness, and had risen in rank to corporal because of his intelligence. He began to train me with scenarios and asked what I would do to have a certain outcome come to pass. The Waco Kid, his best friend (and maybe more),also known as Jim, had me learning how to use guns; both pistol and rifle. And then he drilled me on accuracy and speed, until he declared me 'passable'. Jim was someone you wouldn't think to be strict. He was fun loving and a bit of a drunk - but when he taught me, he was as sober and stern as any schoolmaster I had to deal with.   
To pay them back for all of their kindness, I worked in the Sherrifs' office for fifty cents week, organizing and rewriting old reports to make them legible, sweeping the empty cells, and feeding anyone in the occupied ones. I slept in a small room over the saloon, and would help out in the evenings before the crowd came in by bringing up any barrels or cases needed from the cold cellar, before heading to bed.   
I grew especially fond of their semi deputy, Mungo, who wasn't very smart but had an understanding of the world that most people never really got. He knew me for a girl the first time he saw me, but I convinced him not to say anything, saying that I was playing a prank and if he did reveal me, then I lost. Such a sweet man-boy. He kept cuddling me whenever I came near him and I'd squawk and flail and complain that I wasn't a teddy bear. It had most of the citizens of the town laughing, though a few of the more prim and snobbish biddies acted as if the affection was something shameful.   
I spent two years there, learning and assisting whenever there was trouble; from gun fights, bank robbers and desperadoes to escorting the bank wagons to the trains, and patrolling the area. Despite the dangers and the one time I got shot, I'd never been happier. But it wasn't to last. The circuit judge had given my two uncles new orders. Bart and Jim were leaving and Mungo was to go with them, to another lawless town to bring law and order. They talked with each other and recommended that I move on to Four Corners and present myself to the sherrif there, one JD Dunne, and his group in order to continue learning about the procedures of the law in the West, and when I was eighteen, I was welcome to rejoin them.  
It was a tearful goodbye as I packed up my few items, and the guns Jim had procured for my use, before saddling my sweet Kai and headed out once more. The three who'd become my family, rode with me part of the way and let me know the sherrif was expecting me, and knew of my true gender. Then we parted ways with lots of hugs and kisses and gentle hair ruffling, and promises to keep in contact. I watched them ride off to their new assignment, before turning my head towards my own.

 

######################this is a line##########################################

I rode in near sunset, three days later and headed straight towards the jail. I knew a little bit about the peacekeepers, heck, everyone in the territory knew, about the Magnificent Seven. Men from all walks who watched each other's backs and called each other brother. The gunman, the ladies man, the young sheriff, the preacher, the black healer, the tracker more Indian than white, and the gambler. Their reputations were golden and I was a little wary about how I would be received. It isn't often you'd find a female in a powerful position, even out here. I had faith however, that neither Bart nor Jim, would send me to folks who'd hurt me. As I swung down, a big man with a wiggling mustache came out followed by another man, who didn't look much older than myself.  
"Howdy. How can we help ya?"  
"Hey, ahm lookin fer a Sherrif Dunne. Sherrif Bart sent meh ta learn from him."  
"Oh, you're the girl, Ryn! I'm the sheriff, JD Dunne, this is my friend and fellow peacekeeper, Buck Wilmington." The younger male exclaimed, bouncing a little. I smile and nodded at the rather handsome man who gave me a roguish grin and took my hand in his own.  
"Howdy li'l miss."  
"Nice ta meetcha, Mr Wilmington."  
"None of that, jest call me Buck, miss Ryn," he rumbled before he kissed my hand. I squeaked and yanked my hand back, feeling my face turn red. No one ever treated me like a girl before. I cleared my throat and responded tartly, aware of his amusement at my surprise.  
"Then no miss. I'm16, not 60." I responded, liking this charmer despite myself. He gave a deep belly laugh that made me want to giggle along with him, it was so infectious. I heard a slight chuckle  
"And I'm JD, ok? We were just closing up, before heading over to the Saloon to meet with the rest of our group. I'll finish up here, while Buck can show you the livery where you can stable your horse. She's a real beaut, what's her name?" He stroked the soft nose and she lipped his sleeve. I smiled as I watched them making friends. I trusted her judgement on people. More than once her dislike had saved my bacon.  
"Ah, she's Kai. She's of age to be bred, but I don't know anyone I'd trust with her just yet. If Bart or Jim's horses were stallions, not geldings..." I sighed.  
"Well, some of the boys have stallions so you if you find one, and the two of you agree..." JD began and Buck laughed again, interrupting us.  
"JD, let's get the poor thing settled and fed first. You can talk about this in the Saloon, after we eat; the bar manager, Inez, has the best quesadillas this side of Mexico." He grinned at me before gently pushing JD back into the jail. "Finish up here and we'll meet you there. Let the guys know she's here, yeah?" He arched his eyebrows and I guessed he wanted them to have a little warning before springing me on them. JD nodded in agreement before giving me a wave and vanishing inside.   
Buck gave me a long, considering look before trying to take Kai's reigns. I shook my head   
"I'll take her, thanks. She's my horse after all and I want to give her a proper rub down after our journey." He smiled in approval as we walked down to the stables. A very large man by the rather incongruous name of 'Tiny', showed us to an empty stall next to a large grey, after I paid for the week. Buck instantly began to fuss over it, petting and crooning.   
I pulled the blankets I used in place of a saddle off, then got to brushing her coat out, her mane and tail, then went over her hooves to see if she picked up anything that might hurt her. Once that was done, I made sure she had feed and hay to bed down. A quick check of her water, then I picked up my bags and turned to see Buck watching me. I blinked at him. Had he been watching me the entire time? He nodded and smiled before offering his arm. I cocked my head to one side,  
"You do know that anyone seeing us, will think me a boy?"  
"Not my fault they can't see yer a pretty girl." He grinned wrapping my hand in his arm as I blushed again at the compliment; and tugged me out of the stables and back down the road towards the Standish Saloon. There, the sounds of laughter, the clinking of glasses and the playing of a piano, spilled from the batwing doors with the light, into the darkening street. I felt some apprehension, but pushed it aside and with my head up, followed my guide into the lighted room.


End file.
